After reading Feminism and Femininity by
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Rickhards I now have a better understanding on why
women adore the power of femininity, and now I also enjoy that same power.
Being “girlie” is not a bad thing after all and can still be a tomboy rocking a
pink bow in your hair.
Back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s,
things weren’t that simple. There are big differences between the girls of today
and the girls of that time. Baumgardner and Rickhards explains it saying that “these
girls of yesteryear were protected rather than challenged, and restricted
rather than encouraged. The world in which they grew up deprived them of access
to male things and enforced their participation in female things.” (p.60) This
action made girls believe to be a “good girl” you had to master “boy things”.
Be strong, be smart, and bold but don’t break a nail while doing it.
The one ad campaign that came to my
mind when I read this article was the Always campaign #LikeAGirl.
What does it mean to do something
like a girl? In this ad a couple of older girls and boys are asked to run,
fight, and throw like a girl. All of them express these actions with weakness.
Then another group of young girls are asked to demonstrate the same actions,
expressing how girls actually run, fight, and throw. The director asks a little
girl “What does it mean when I say run like a girl?”. She responded with, “It
means run as fast as you can.” This shows that society belittles girls and
brainwashes people to think doing something like a girl is a bad thing. When
did doing something “like a girl” become an insult? Being told you do something
like a girl should not be an insult but should have a sense of pride. It
shouldn’t be a bad thing to be a girl. In the end of the ad the older girls are
asked, “If I asked you again to run like a girl, what would you do”? And the
response was “I would run like myself”.
This ad is showing us that girls can do anything that guys
can do.
The authors Baumgardner and
Rickhards are trying to redefine the word “girlie” by saying that you can be
girl a do things that boys can do. “Inadvertently,
feminists and non-feminists alike have been left with a mixed message: Girls
might have the potential to be powerful, but girl things assuredly do not”.
(p.62) Just because someone is interested in Barbies rather than Hot Wheels does
not make them less of a person.
The next ad that caught my eye when I was
watching television one night is the Verzion Inspire Her Mind ad campaign.
United States has fallen significantly behind the rest of the world when it
comes to the STEM subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math states
Verzion. Just as startling is that girls are even less involved in STEM majors
and careers than their male counterparts, as women hold less than %25 of our
country’s STEM jobs.
The ad starts out with a female toddler
named Samantha. Throughout Samantha’s entire life she is limited by the words
used towards her, for example; pretty girl, don’t get your dress dirty, this
project as gotten out of control, and why don’t you hand that to your brother.
These comments belittle Samantha on the things she can do by making her believe
only boys can do that. Words can have a huge impact on how young girls think.
Samantha was obviously interested in science, but instead she counties to apply
makeup because that is what society has taught her, that being pretty is more
important than being smart. Verzion also states that 66% of 4th
grade girls say they like science and math, but only 18% of all college
engineering majors are female. This demonstrates that young girls are not
encouraged to pursue these types of jobs because that is a “mans job” and girls
are worried that they will not be taken seriously in that type of industry.
Words can have an extreme impact on how young girls think; maybe we should call
her pretty brilliant instead of just focusing on appearances. As our authors Baumgardner and Rickhards put
it “The butt of the critique is usually the young women espousing feminism
while wearing Gucci. Defining girlie is too often expressed by what young women
wear (miniski lipstick!) and thus what gets focused on is the accessory, not
the content of the person wearing it.”(p.62)
Reflecting on the content of those
two videos, we can only conclude that we must challenge our minds to implore on
what we believe about femininity. It is not enough to acknowledge that the
videos are right. We have to unlearn everything that we’ve been taught since we
were children, and raise our own children differently than we were. Be
intentional with your daughters and, to all the women reading this, change out
the old lenses you were taught to view yourself with. Don’t teach your
daughters to compete with other girls. Don’t tell them to not trust other
girls. Don’t compliment a woman for “not being like girls usually are”, for
this means that you only admire the characteristics of that woman that are
viewed as being the opposite of what she is: a woman. Let us celebrate
femininity and non-femininity a like. Let us simply find pride in being born a
female and all that may come of this blessing.
To conclude, no matter how you
choose to express yourself, through Barbies or Hot Wheels, high heels or boxer
briefs you are not lesser or better than anyone else. Women have come a long
way to make their gender equal to the other, especially women from the 1st
and 2nd waves of the feminism movement. Girls from this century need
to remember that you can be a “good girl” without doing “boy things”. You can
be a “good girl” by just BEING YOUR DAMN SELF! And owning it. Wear that pink
bow, play football, wear makeup, and follow your dreams no matter what the
status normal is, because you were not born to follow a norm. “Perhaps younger
women need to share some of their entitlement with older women, imploring them
to “just do it” and be “strong, smart, and bold””.(p 67)
Richards, Amy. “Feminism and Femininity:Or How Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Thong.” Feminism
and Femininity. By Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.
P. 56-67. Print.
AlwaysBrand.”Always #LikeAGirl.” Youtube. Youtube, 2014. Web 26 Sept. 2016
VerizonWireless. “Inspire Her Mind- VerizonCommerical.” Youtube. Youtube, 2014. Web. 26 Sept.
2016
I really enjoyed this blog post because it's so encouraging for women to be who they are, to do things how they want to, and girls are capable of doing as much as guys can do. I felt partially attached to this blog post because as a woman wanting to be in the sports field, a man-dominated field, it's hard to enter the field without being stereotyped or judged that "I don't know what I'm talking about" or "she's a girl, she doesn't know this sport" when in reality, this is my passion. It's hard when you have someone constantly putting you down and telling you that you don't know anything abut this because you're a girl. I thought it was really well written and great examples and explained. I felt really uplifted and encouraged to keep loving what I love as a girl.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed these artifacts that you have shared with us. I have never seen them before now. When looking at the #LikeAGirl I was able to see that anyone who doesn't identify as a girl, meaning anyone above the age of thirteen thinks that being a girl is demeaning and belittling. However, when the young girls were asked, they described themselves, because they see themselves as girls not a "boys","Men", or "Women". This was very thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteThe Verizon commercial was also something that I can see cause internal turmoil for young girls and women who aspire to work in the science and mathematic field. Being told that that is not what girls do, can obviously see that Samantha in the commercial was repressing her fascination for science by applying makeup and then talking to her friend. This shows that she picked up the "girlie" culture instead of pursuing what she's interested in, all due to the patriarchal society that we live in.